“At length the end of this great man approached. The immediate cause of his death is wrapped in mystery. He had been recommended to take a strong dose of mercury (his infirmities for some time had been neither few nor light): was it too strong for his constitution to support? so at least some thought; so even he appeared to suspect.”[23] He died on the double anniversary of his birth and his accession to the throne, twenty–three years after the latter event, in 1697, in the 68th year of his age; and by a singular coincidence, his birth and death were each signalized by a tempest of uncommon and fearful violence. One might suppose that the spirit of Leopold had descended on all Austrian statesmen. Within a century of the triumphal entry of Sobieski into Vienna, Poland ceased to be an independent kingdom, and the co–operation of Austria was rewarded with a third of her spoils. It seems vain to expect gratitude in international dealings; yet we might almost have supposed that the recollection of the deliverance of Vienna would have deterred Austria from sharing in so unprovoked and profligate an injustice. The situation and the policy of Europe have altered strangely since the period of which we speak. Poland has fallen before the arms of Russia, and Turkey preserves a precarious independence only by the policy of Christian powers, the supine witnesses or interested sharers in the spoliation of a Christian kingdom, which, having been the bulwark of Europe against Turkey as long as Turkey was formidable, would have formed an equally effectual barrier against the encroachments of Russia.